


Little Hands, Locked Together

by holdyourbreathfornow



Series: Family of Three [3]
Category: Half-Life VR but the AI is Self-Aware - Fandom
Genre: Child Neglect, Dissociative Episode, Gordon has PTSD, Joshua was Gordon's name before he was kidnapped and brainwashed by Black Mesa, Multi, Panic Attacks, Pressure Stimming, Time Skips, implied child experiments, meeting as kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:26:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26425612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/holdyourbreathfornow/pseuds/holdyourbreathfornow
Summary: The three of them meet at different times, in different situations.  The circumstances may not be the best, but as long as they stick together, they'll be fine.
Relationships: Benrey & Gordon Freeman, Benrey/Tommy Coolatta/Gordon Freeman, Bubby/Dr. Coomer (Half-Life), Tommy Coolatta & Dr. Coomer, Tommy Coolatta & Gordon Freeman
Series: Family of Three [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1918150
Comments: 40
Kudos: 385





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter isn't bad, but there are some hints of child neglect towards the end, along with implied kidnapping. Stay safe, y'all!

Tommy’s father has the unfortunate habit of accidentally looming over others. This makes him seem a little bit scary when he’s almost the complete opposite. Whenever he does his looming thing over Tommy, Tommy feels like his dad is his own warm shadow. 

Dad’s friends aren’t scared by the looming either, but that’s probably because they’re not as short as Tommy is. Dad had wanted to come say hi, and Tommy wanted to see the new baby his dad said they had. He finds babies very interesting, and cute.

Dr. Coomer sits in a black wicker rocking chair with a little bundle in his arms. The bundle looks like a blanket patterned with rocket ships and stars, but Tommy knows there’s a baby wrapped up in there, and he wants to see it.

“Hello, Thomas!” Dr. Coomer greets him cheerily enough, shifting his baby to one arm as he helps Tommy climb up onto his other knee. “Did you want to say hello to Joshua?”

“Y-yes. Please.” Tommy remembers his manners at the last second and Dr. Coomer smiles. 

“Well, hopefully he’s in a good mood. Babies are very fickle, you know.” Carefully, Dr. Coomer tugs the blanket down and a tiny baby face appears. Tommy leans a little further in just as the baby sneezes. Tommy flinches back and pulls out his handkerchief to scrub at his face.

“Bless you.” He tells baby Joshua and Dr. Coomer chuckles heartily.

“I’m sure he’d say ‘thank you’ if he was old enough.” He tells Tommy, and Tommy nods. “Say, how old are you now, Thomas?”

“Four. And I like being called Tommy more. I-it sounds more like a person who has fun than Thomas.” He sticks his tongue out in disgust, but quickly pulls it back into his mouth before Dad can see.

“Ah, very well, Tommy. I think that suits you much more, as well!” Dr. Coomer shifts Joshua a little higher. “What do you think, Joshua? Maybe someday you’ll have a nickname too?” Baby Joshua coos in response and Dr. Coomer nods seriously as if Joshua has just said something very important. Maybe he has.

“Dr. Coomer, can parents speak Baby?” Tommy asks and Dr. Coomer hums in consideration, tilting his head to the side. Joshua squirms in his blanket a little, and Dr. Coomer starts speaking as he gently pulls at the fabric.

“You know, I like to think parents have a very special bond with their children! So maybe a parent can understand their own baby, but that’s all. Does that make sense?” Tommy nods after a moment.

“Sort of- Kinda like how my dad knows how I like my sandwiches, or which feels are good feels and which are bad feels.”

“Your father sounds like a very good father.” Dr. Coomer tells him and Tommy looks over to where his father is talking with Dr. Bubby. His father smiles slowly and flexes his hand in a wave. Tommy shakes his own hand in a responding wave before he turns back to Dr. Coomer.

“I think Joshua and you and Dr. Bubby are a very good family.” He tells the man, who beams and pats Tommy’s shoulder gently.

“Well, thank you very much, Tommy. I think you and your father are a good family, too. You seem like you enjoy spending time with him.”

“I do.” He shifts around on Dr. Coomer’s leg and takes the little rattle Dr. Coomer offers him, carefully shaking it where Joshua can see it and reach for it. “But this is fun, too.”

“Excellent.” Dr. Coomer settles back in his seat and Tommy sways gently with the rocking as he plays with the baby.

Later, years later, Tommy’s dad will hug him, tighter than he ever has before, and Tommy will ask what’s wrong. His dad will tell him he can’t see Joshua anymore and Tommy will cry. He’ll see how the Coomers withdraw, and he’ll see his dad sink into his work, and soon enough, Tommy will make himself a new best friend, because he’s tired of being alone. There will be a moment where he thinks about going by Thomas, but then he’ll remember a little boy, five years old against his own nine years, following him around and shouting his name every chance he gets, and Tommy will decide to be Tommy.

He’ll make the choice to keep being happy, even when it’s hard.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this one's a little worse. Implied child abuse, scientific experiments on children, memory loss, and isolation.

Subject BN-34 is tossed into the last available cell in the Pueritia wing, a wing that is, in all reality, not that big. They hiss at the door they were thrown in through, fur raising around their shoulders and along their scalp. They can’t keep that up for very long, though, before they have to shield their eyes from the glaring harshness of the fluorescent bulbs overhead. 

“...H’lo?” A voice whispers from somewhere unknown and Subject BN-34 whirls around, eyes squinted shut but claws still on full display. They hiss again, lower, more like a warning rattle than anything. “...Y’sound like a snake. Little… Little rattlesnake.”

“I’m not a snake.” The Subject growls. “Where are you?”

“Next cell over. There’s a vent.” The Subject carefully stalks forward until they hit the wall then they scoot along that, sniffing until they get hit in the face with a brand new leather and soap smell. “Hi.”

“...Are you bad?” The Subject asks, fur almost fluffing up again, but the voice hesitates.

“I, uh… I dunno. Nobody will tell me.”

“Well…” The Subject pauses to consider this, flopping down on the ground so they can curl around the vent, paws pressing against it as they stretch. “Well, I’m not bad. So if you stay with me, then I can turn you good. Like… Like when you’re cold and get under a blanket so then you turn warm.”

“I wanna blanket. Nobody will give me one. It’s cold.” The voice on the other side of the grate sniffs and the Subject frowns. They look at the vent and the big holes in it, then they slowly morph until they look like a snake, working their way through the hole.

The voice the Subject had been talking to belonged to a little boy, with messy brown hair and big, bright green eyes.

“Oh!” The boy startles away, but soon enough the Subject finds themself being carefully scooped up into a pair of chubby hands. “Oh, you really are a snake!”

“N-no. I can just change what I look like.” The Subject flicks a tongue out, like a snake, and the boy giggles as it skitters across his fingertips.

“That tickles.”

“I could be a blanket.” The Subject says and the boy goes quiet. The Subject curls around his fingers a little more and does their best to be warm. The boy’s fingers tremble faintly and he curls up further against the wall, pulling his hands, and the Subject held in them, closer to his chest.

“I dunno why they won’t just give me a blanket.” He mutters finally and sniffles, tears starting to well up. “I keep asking, but-”

“‘S’okay.” The Subject takes their small form and  _ stretches _ until they seem to be nothing more than a pitch black cloud of smoke. Their eyes, more than there are stars in the sky, blink out from the mist as they coil around the boy. He hums and they rattle in response.

“D’you have a name?” The boy asks, voice heavy with drowsiness, and several of the Subject’s eyes blink back open from where they’d drifted closed.

“...Benrey.”

“Benrey?” The boy whispers and eyes blink back at him in confirmation. “I like your name.”

“What’s your name?” Benrey asks. “Unless you just want to be called Blanket Boy.”

“Noooo.” The boy laughs and reaches into the fog. Benrey allows themself to be grasped and wrapped tighter around the boy, like an actual blanket. “My name’s Gordon.”

“...I like your name, too.” Benrey murmurs finally and lets their eyes droop closed as Gordon also nods off, warm and safe in their cloudy hold.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnd here we are. Trigger warnings: Dissociative episode, panic attack, memory loss, self-doubt, crying. At least there's fluff??? (I'm so sorry)

Gordon feels ripped down the middle, split open and scattered to the four winds. There’s a baby album open on his lap, and he finds his fingers dragging over the raised lines where one of his dads had labeled the Polaroid pictures.

They all say ‘Joshua’. Joshua’s first steps, Joshua’s first solid meal, Joshua sleeping curled up in Coomer’s arms, in a blanket patterned with rockets and stars.

He doesn’t know who he is, some weird amalgamation of this lost little kid and an even more lost mess of a grown man.

“Bbbbbbbbbro.” Benrey’s voice rings through the room, and he looks up. They’re watching him from the doorframe. “Gordo, bro, you good? You been in here for awhile. Unepic alone momence, not good.”

“I…” One of his eyes twitches and his hands feel cold, and his lungs hurt and-

“Tommy!” Benrey calls, panicked, while moving across the room. They gently take the photo album from him and wrap him up in their arms, pressing him back together, but it’s still not enough, not enough.

Tommy appears in the doorway in an instant, eyes taking in the scene.

“Wh-what happened? Benrey?” He asks and Benrey lets out some Sweet Voice, a bright red. “Okay. Gordon? Gordon, hon, you gotta look at me.” Whose name is that? Is it his? Joshua and Gordon are just noises, words he can’t understand, mountains he has no way of climbing.

When more pressure is suddenly added to Benrey’s tight hug, he feels his seams at least touch, even if they don’t reconnect. Tommy’s wrapped both Gordon and Benrey up in his arms, and Gordon curls further into the hug, hands fisting in the soft material of Benrey’s hoodie.

“More?” Tommy asks and Gordon thinks about it for a second before nodding. Tommy squeezes a little tighter, and Gordon feels like he can breathe again, coherent thought difficult but possible. “Gordon? You need anything?”

“N-no.” He mutters and Tommy buries his face in Gordon’s messy ponytail, Benrey leaning their head against Gordon’s, which is resting on their shoulder. “Sorry, I’m-I’m so-”

“Don’t apologize. Just breathe.” Gordon measures his breath, like Bubby had taught him, and eventually Tommy speaks again. “Do you want to tell us what brought this on?”

“I couldn’t remember which name was mine. And there were pictures in the baby album that I couldn’t remember and I just-” He cuts himself off before he can start hyperventilating again. “I just wish I had my memories as a kid. Sometimes it feels like I’m missing parts of me.”

“Lil puzzle man.” Benrey mutters suddenly and Gordon snorts at that. They press a kiss to his temple and he leans into the contact. “Put you back together, don’t mind the missing pieces.”

“Benrey’s right, Mis-Gordon! You’re very important to-to both of us! And if you need us, we’ll be right here.”

“Thank you.” Exhaustion crashes over Gordon suddenly and he sags further against Tommy, pulling Benrey with him so they’re laying on his chest. Tommy rumbles, the deep note vibrating through Gordon’s head, and his eyes droop closed as one of them starts gently playing with his hair.

-

Harold hums under his breath as he heads to the living room. When he gets there, though, he finds himself pulled up short. The sight before him makes him smile.

All three younger members of the Science Team are asleep on the couch, twisted awkwardly together. Occasionally, one of them will shift, which usually means Benrey nearly falls off the couch.

Harold walks over and carefully lifts Benrey, resettling them so no one’s in danger of falling. Nobody stirs, and so he also takes Gordon’s glasses and Tommy’s propeller cap, setting them on the table, within easy reach. The last thing he does is cover all three of them with a blanket. 

Bubby’s in their bedroom, grumbling about having to make the bed, when Harold goes to get him.

“Bubby!” he whispers and Bubby turns. “You need to come see this!”

“Anything to get me out of making this fucking bed.” Bubby mutters and tosses the sheet down, following Harold down the hall to the living room. When he sees the three tangled together, Bubby’s lips press into a thin line.

“We should start a new photo album.” Coomer whispers and Bubby nods. He grins a little bit and readjusts, crossing his arms over his chest.

“Agreed. This is definitely blackmail worthy, right here.” Coomer laughs, but, just as mischievous as his husband, doesn’t deny shit.

Now they just need to find the camera.


End file.
